by Stacey Berg
“That’s because it’s the one time you get to stuff yourself as much as you want,” Milse snorted. “No saving up for the rest of the week.”
“Jus’ doing my duty,” Justan protested, chewing heroically. “Can’t have this good food going t’ waste.” He waved a crust in Hunter’s direction. “Bet you didn’t eat like this where you came from.”
“No,” Hunter said, thinking of the refectory.
“Where was that again?” Loro asked, folding a portion of grains into a broad green leaf with quick, deft movements. Up until now he had ignored her. She sighed.
“North. I thought you already knew.”
“I know that’s what you say.”
“Loro, please don’t,” Lia murmured.
Ignoring the med, Loro said, “It’s just sometimes I wonder.”
Hunter asked mildly, “Why would I lie about it?”
“I don’t know. Why would you?” Everyone was looking at them now, even Justan, cheek puffed out around a bite he was forgetting to swallow.
“Now, now,” the Warder said, hands making vague patting motions in both their directions. “Let’s not ruin Milse’s good work with an argument. Everyone’s welcome in the Ward, isn’t that what we always say? Helping each other means helping strangers too.”
“Yes,” Loro said, “but not every stranger comes straight to your table, especially when we don’t know anything about them.” It was, for once, a completely sensible point of view. Hunter hoped the Warder didn’t listen.
“You just let me worry about that, Loro. Echo’s been with us for many sevens now, and she’s shown that she’s a friend, hasn’t she? See, Lia agrees too. Now, let’s speak of other things, shall we? Now that I think of it, I’ve been meaning to ask—do you know if the Benders got the mill fixed?”
After a stiff pause, Loro gave in, nodding. “They did. That print you sent Exey was just what he needed to work it out.” Lia rewarded him with a smile, and he continued in a fair attempt at good humor, “The millers said they’ll grind all your grain chit-free forever.”
The Warder beamed. “I hope you told them that won’t be necessary. The print was a gift.”
“I did, but I don’t think they’ll be taking your chits anyway.”
The lights flickered, and the fans slowed, just long enough for everyone to stop eating. Then the power caught again, and the moment of apprehension passed. “Exey thought he might be able to rig the mill to help when that happens too,” Loro said.
“There’s no end to that man’s cleverness,” Milse said. “But let’s not lose sight of what’s important.” He pointed at the empty platter where the bread had been. “We’ll have double loaves this seven. Even Justan will be sick of it.”
“I can take the grain to the mill if you’d like,” Lia said amidst the laughter. “I was planning to go to market tomorrow anyway.” She shot a mock-innocent look at Milse, who harrumphed under his breath.
“Tomorrow’s no good,” Loro said. He glanced at the Warder. “I have plans, I can’t take you.”
Lia’s eyebrows went up. “I’ve been going to market since I was old enough to carry sacks. I don’t need an escort.” Her smile took any sting out of the words. Of course, Hunter thought wryly, that smile could take the sting out of almost anything. Only a fool as stubborn as Loro could manage to frown back at it.
“I just don’t think you should go tomorrow. There was some trouble in North again.”
“Hunters?” Hunter asked, as casually as she could.
He shot a scowl at her. “Not this time, but could’ve been. They’re everywhere these days. Getting ready for the tithe.” He tore off a piece of bread. “It’s making people tight. They’re arguing over every little thing. The fest is coming, there’s a lot of ferm around, and it’s so Saints-be-praised hot—you never know what’s going to happen next.”
“Maybe Loro’s right,” the Warder said.
Unexpected anger flashed through Hunter. She had never heard Lia ask a thing for herself, and for them to deny her such a simple pleasure—
“Echo can take me,” Lia said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Loro snapped.
“I’m not being ridiculous! It’s only market, for Saint’s sake. She may not be one of your guards, but I think if there’s an argument in a chit line she can probably find a way to get me out of it. Couldn’t you?” Hunter nodded solemnly, trying not to choke on the sip of water she took to hide her expression. “Besides, no one’s going to start any trouble at market. Ward, Bend, even North, we all depend on it just the same.”
“Trouble doesn’t always think so clearly,” Loro said. “Neither do the Benders. They’re happy enough when you help them with their babies, then they’re all friendly. You don’t know them like I do, though. Yesterday there was a fight on the edge, a bad one, just because one of ours tried to cut through the gap without an invitation.”
“They’re just cityens, Loro. Same as us. I know everyone’s tight right now, but we’ll be dancing together at the fest this year like always.”
“Sure we will.” He squeezed a crust as if it were a Bender’s neck. “What if you’re wrong?”
“Then Echo will take care of me.”
“I don’t think—”
“You know, Loro,” the Warder interrupted, smiling in apology, “I think Lia might be right. It’s only market, after all. Neutral ground, no matter what else is happening.”
Loro gave him a quizzical look. “Do you want me to go with her, then?”
“No, no, your errand is more important. I think Lia will be safe enough with Echo.” Loro stared at him another moment, then nodded slowly. The Warder turned the conversation then to other matters. There had been something behind that exchange, Hunter felt certain, but she had no way to probe further without being obvious, so she reluctantly let it pass. Lia, delighted with the outcome, spent the rest of the evening taking every opportunity to charm Loro back into good temper, and for the most part she seemed to succeed. Whenever his gaze happened to fall on Hunter, he frowned, but it was more thoughtful than angry, as if he were just on the verge of puzzling something out.
Given the circumstances, she would have preferred the anger.
The shortest route to the market took them past the stads. In the distant past the huge open structures had been stages for some kind of public spectacle, gathering places that between the pair of them would have held three times the population of the present city. The upper levels where seating must have been had collapsed onto themselves, the giant ramps dead-ending only a few strides after the first turn, but the outer walls still made a pair of three-quarter enclosures. The open ends faced each other, creating two vast empty areas, pavement long crumbled away, that had been easy enough to dig into fields over time as the city needed more arable land for food. The priests’ crop powder made the grain grow plump and dense, and so far the cityens had not outgrown the space. Beyond the stads a herd of bovines grazed on weeds and stubble, tails flicking in the heat.
“We store all the grain in there after harvest,” Lia said, pointing to the sheltered end of the smaller stad. “It keeps better that way. People pick up their ration and only get it milled when they’re ready to use it. Or at least they did. Nowadays, lots of times the millers get it instead and bring it to market already ground.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I always forget. I keep thinking of you as a stranger, arrived from someplace else. You probably know the city better than I do.”
Hunter shook her head. “I haven’t been to this part in many annuals. Not since training exercises when I was juvenile.”
“Really? Have you stayed in the Church all this time?”
“No. Out in the desert mostly.”
Lia’s eyes widened. “I’ve never been outside the forcewall. Most of us haven’t. I think some of the boys go outsid
e to show off, sometimes. The only one I know who spends any time out there now is Loro; that’s why the Warder sent him with you when you went to look for the—” She broke off, touching Hunter’s shoulder softly in apology. “Anyway. Loro says the outside’s exactly the same as the fringes inside and you wouldn’t even know there was a forcewall if you didn’t feel it tingle as you walked through.”
Hunter’s gaze wandered north. “Close in it’s just like the city. But when you go farther . . . I’ve been as far as the aircars can go.” She paused, trying to think how to let Lia see it with her eyes. “When you turn around, all you see is nothing. The priests say that even before the Fall, the city didn’t extend that far. There were small buildings maybe, but not the size of the ones inside. There’s nothing much left of them now, just mounds where they fell and got covered over by dust, and a few pieces of metal sometimes. Everything that was made has burned white from the sun. It even sounds white sometimes, the way the wind can blow across the spaces. The only color is a little bit of brown where brush is rooted deep enough to find water. But I’ve been there right after the vernal rains, and then all the brown turns green. It’s still silent, except for the wind, but if you know where to look you see the small animals scurrying everywhere. It’s the one time in the annual that conditions support their reproduction.” She smiled grimly to herself. “The predators do well then too.”
Lia was silent for a moment, digesting that. Then: “Do all hunters go there?”
“For training.” Hunter veered abruptly from that subject. “But most of the time they’re assigned to the city. There’s enough to be done here.”
As she spoke, her eyes sought the opening to the giant U of the stads. From this distance she couldn’t make them out, but they had to be there, her hunter cousins, inconspicuous in their nondescript Church garb but unmistakably hunter in their posture, the easy balanced way they would be standing relaxed but alert, watching as cityens wove in and out with baskets and pull carts. Hunter had stood with them as a juvenile, consciously mimicking their stance, small thumbs hooked into her waistband, refusing to fidget for what seemed like interminable shifts on guard duty. There might be a juvenile with them today too, another cohort getting ready to slot into place.
Lia followed her gaze. “Do you miss them very much?” she asked softly.
Dust kicked up from the street; she had to clear her throat to answer. “I can’t see them from here.”
She knew from Lia’s expression that that wasn’t the question the med had asked, but that was all the answer she had.
Hunter expected the market to seem smaller, less chaotic, than it had when she was juvenile. Instead it was the opposite: where she remembered a few rows of carts offering little more than a selection of greens and some sacks of flour, now the market overflowed out of a square three long blocks on a side. Most of the carts carried grain products still, Hunter saw, in sacks of varying sizes that might hold a day’s supply or a week’s, but some offered other wares as well, a bright pile of round red fruits she recognized as pommes, a stack of white bricks that must be some kind of cheese, even rolls of reclaimed polymer fiber already combed into sheets and ready to cut for clothing. Right next to those a particularly enterprising cityen had set up a display of tools, needles, straight cutters, and even some delicate-looking shears that he was currently demonstrating on a scrap of his neighbor’s fabric. The metallic snick carried clearly above the timbre of voices.
“Let’s see if we can find Exey,” Lia said, squinting across the square. “You’ll like him. He’s very clever. Come this way, he usually sets his cart over there.”
“Wait,” Hunter said, but Lia had already set off through the crowd. Hunter caught up quickly, positioning herself at the med’s shoulder. She didn’t like the way cityens crammed into the tight walkways between the carts, shouldering past each other to get the attention of the carts’ harried managers, who could barely keep up with the pace of the shouted orders. Even though it was early, a few of the carts were empty already, their managers shrugging with upturned palms and weary smiles as those who had stood in line shouted their complaints. It seemed good-humored, mostly; there was enough for everyone, she estimated, even if some of them had to go to the back of a different line. It was easy to imagine, though, what would happen if supplies really ran short. A crowd like this could turn into a riot as fast as thought, smiles turning to snarls, the laughter morphing into something ugly, a growl she had heard before, when she had dragged a terrified girl through darkened streets, the mob snapping at their heels as they fled towards the Church, where the empty altar waited. . . .
“There it is!” Lia turned off the main walkway into a narrower path that ran behind the largest carts. “Exey!” she called.
The Bender was working inside the bed of a covered cart, one flap pulled back. It was brighter inside than the small opening could account for. Hunter saw the glowlamp burning above a workbench, got a glimpse of a complicated device the man was working on amidst a nest of wire and tools before he hopped lightly down, pulling the flap closed behind him. She looked around, puzzled, seeing no power line attached to the cart. He followed her gaze to the roof of the cart, where a device much like a sun charger lay spread along the covering. “Just something I’m trying out,” he said with a little grin. “Why pull all your power from the Church if you don’t need to? Hello, Lia my sweetest, you always bring the sun into my day.”
Lia ran to meet him with a hug, keeping an arm around his waist as Hunter approached less precipitately, studying the cart with interest. It looked like something she might find in the priests’ underground laboratories, the display surface laid out carefully with bits and pieces of gear and wire. There were a few things, like a spark-striker, that Hunter recognized, and many whose purpose she couldn’t quite make out.
Lia laughed. “Exey, this is my friend Echo. You met once before.”
The man reached out to clasp hands. He was taller than Lia, taller even than Hunter, but wiry, his forearms hard with muscle and his grip strong and sure despite the delicacy of his long fingers. He wore his gleaming dark hair past shoulder length, pulled efficiently back out of the way, but the clasp that held it was a bar of polished copper, surface dimpled with the perfectly spaced marks of a tiny hammer. It must have taken many hours to beat a thick piece of wire so flat, and more to shine it until it glinted, catching the sun as Exey turned his head and smiled. “I remember. You came with Lia when Mari was having her baby.”
“Are she and the baby well?” Hunter asked politely.
“Yes, very, thanks to Lia. You should see that girl. Hardly a month out, and already she’s mostly got her eyes open, thinking all the time. Except when she’s eating, which she’s also extremely good at. Or peeing, yet another talent. Not to mention the other, of course. Yes, altogether she’s an amazing little thing.”
“You’re just a proud uncle,” Lia said, smiling.
“Oh, no, I’m perfectly unbiased. Just because she’s the first baby any of my brothers and sisters have made, that’s no reason to doubt my judgment, is it? Besides, how can she help being brilliant, when her uncle is the best fabricator in the city? I tell you, soon I’ll be making her one of these.” From his tray he lifted one of the objects Hunter hadn’t recognized, a thin stick the length of her forearm, topped with a circle of triangles, shiny on one side and dull on the other, slightly curving, like a canid’s ear. She was still trying to imagine what it was when Exey touched one triangle with a finger, setting the whole wheel to spinning atop the stick. Perfectly balanced, the blades blurred as they whirled around, the dark and light sides flickering as they spun. Lia laughed with delight. “That’s what all the children say when they see it,” Exey said. “You can have it if you’d like, but I have better toys for you. Look.”
He pulled out a tray full of bright baubles, shining yellow trinkets of no obvious utility, but pleasing to look at all the sa
me, like the decorative carvings barely visible in the high vaults of the sanctuary. “This one, I think?” He lifted a short chain of faceted beads connected by tiny links that let them spin free, glinting in the light like the toy he had shown Lia. The last bead sparked red as fire, a jewel captured in a yellow-threaded basket.
“Oh, Exey, it’s beautiful.” Lia’s smile sparkled like the jewel.
Exey presented the piece with a grand sweeping gesture, offering it to Lia on his palm. “Have it.”
Lia clasped her hands behind her back reluctantly. “I don’t have any spare chits this week.”
“Have it anyway. You don’t need chits with me.”
“But I can’t just take it from you for nothing.”
“Why not? It’s not worth anything. Completely useless, though decorative. There’s so much of this stuff lying around, people bring it to me when they find it. All I do is polish up bits and put them together.”
“Everyone tries that, but only you have the eye for it.”
He smiled, a little ruefully Hunter thought. “You always know the right thing to say. See, that’s payment enough.” He dropped the bauble into her hand, closing her fingers over it to forestall any protests, then turned a critical eye on Hunter. “You, on the other hand, look entirely useful. Not at all like my usual customers. But,” Exey continued with a sly glance at Lia, “not without your own decorative qualities.” He rummaged in the tray. “Here, I think this is just about right.”
Between his fingers dangled a miniature of the bar that pulled his hair back, only this one made of the same gold as the filigreed piece he’d given to Lia. A rectangle the length of Hunter’s smallest finger and perhaps half as wide, it had no design at all, only myriad planes hammered at impossible yet completely inevitable angles, the surfaces polished so fine that they reflected sun like so many shards of mirror. He held it up by the side of her face, measuring. “Yes, it suits you fine.”
“It does,” Lia agreed. “Echo, it’s perfect.”
“I have nothing to exchange for it,” Hunter said stiffly.